Reading: May 2008 Archives

This was my first trip to a BEA show, and I was not prepared.  Now, I've worked many a high-tech trade event that were of similar size, with similarly large and pushy crowds.  What I didn't expect was a fundamental reversal of capitalism: I expected people to be selling me books; instead, they were giving them to me! Free!  Greed quickly sedated shock, and I started to accept some of the better titles offered (expect reviews).  Six books turned into eight, then ten ... my muscles began to carry that slow constant burn that means "stop or you will regret this."  My awesome, bright purple Bailey Works Bag helped, but not enough as the bag stretched to accommodate book after book after book ... My spine has compressed and I am now 2" shorter, and I may always walk with a limp.

So I was tired when I entered the theater for the ForeWord Book of The Year award ceremony.  Sadly, I did not win.  As one of four finalists, I expected I would (75% chance, right?), but I can't be disappointed.  First, even making it to the Finalist level is an honor: the BOTY's are judged rigorously. Second, a new friend and fellow author, Eddie Gresham, won the Bronze. Third, I was able to meet the second place author, Paigan Stone.  I'll be reading her book "Gabriele Caccini: The Vampire Gene - Book 1 (The Vampire Gene)" as soon as I can and posting a review here. There's no need for me to read Eddie's "Footfalls," because I've already read it - and it was fantastic (I would recommend it to any Stephen King fan). I was convinced he was going to take the Gold ... but then, I was also convinced that I would take the Silver.  So much for my supernatural powers of prognostication. Anyway,it was nice to meet Eddie (who I've traded emails with since we were both selected as finalists), and I am very happy for him.  No, not happy, proud.  Give Eddie a hand, folks, and then go buy his book. Remember: If you want to eat, fund farms; if you want to live, fund medicine; but if you want to read, fund your independent authors - we are the wave of the future!

I also can't be disappointed because I won a Bronze medal in the IPPY awards, as well as a new award for "raising the bar" in independent publishing: an "Indie Excellence" award, from Odyssey Reviews. As the saying goes, "two outta three ain't bad!"  The best part with the IPPY was the ceremony: we were called up to the front for photos, and a tall, red-gown woman placed real medals around our necks --  I felt just like Han Solo! The medal is large, heavy, and very kind to the ego.  

There will be some followup posts on some of the cooler things about the show, such as the re-emergence of "choose your own adventure" books, a new tack on potentially starting a publishing company, and of course reviews of some of the more inspiring books.   One is "All Ye Zombies," which is a corporate-zombie book.  The booth was manned by the most amazingly beautiful girl (my wife still takes first prize though!), but I was honestly drawn by the zombie title.  Another is "The Nine Lives of Romeo Crumb, Life One" by L. Rifkin.  The book is independently published and beautifully produced, and illustrated by Kurt Hartman.  I was given a copy of the paperback, but the hardcovers were even more exquisite ... if I like this book I will likely pick up all of the hardcovers, for a complete nine book set (well, only the first few are available now, but eventually ...)

So today's topic is: Managing Your Time, with an emphasis on the "for You."

We all have the same problems.  We need to accomplish several things every day in order to survive.  We need to: eat enough to fuel our metabolism; and sleep for at least a few hours.  For some of us, the amount of time we need to sleep is longer than others (I prefer at least six hours, and dream of a day when I can pack in 8 or even nine hours of restful sleep ... although I can't dream too much because I only have six hours to do it in, and I like to leave some room for more interesting dreams about robots, zombies, robot zombies, and maybe a sex dream.  No zombies in the sex dreams, though.  The right kind of robot, maybe, but no zombies).

Anyway, on top of those physical "in order to survive" requirements, there are those imposed upon us because of our participation in a civilized society.  We must: earn money to pay for food, and to a mortgage so that we have a place to sleep; we must earn money to pay for a car to drive to work so that we can earn the afore-mentioned money for the afore-mentioned purchase of food; we must earn money to buy liquor because the afore-mentioned job, required to earn the afore-mentioned money, will cause us undue stress, sending us to the bottle like lambs to a teat.

The way I figure it: if you're lucky enough to get 7 hours of sleep, plus 1 hour for eating (not a lot spread over three meals) ... that's 8 hours, or one third of your day.  8 glorious hours of work, plus an hour a day driving to and from work ... that's nine hours, right? Wrong, because the "eight hour work day" is actually a nine hour work day, wasting an hour in the middle for "lunch" although no one ever gets to eat lunch for an hour because we have to do some stupid errand, or (worse) work through lunch to make some sort of deadline.  So, we're an hour past 2/3 of the day ... leaving seven whole hours.

What do you do in seven hours? 

I try to:

Now, I live on a farm, so I lose another two hours or so to chores, but even so, five hours should be enough, right?  ... right?

If only the time were unbroken and sequential, maybe, but as it is there's barely time to get to the "wife" part.  I'd much rather that the money part didn't matter, and I could skip the workday and the book promotion, leaving time to spend with my farm-family and my absolutely beautiful wife, with enough let over to write purely for the enjoyment of writing, but only after lots of kissing and hugging (and whatnot). 

What would you do?